Got a new laptop? Here’s how to maintain your privacy from the start

When you get a new laptop – with no cookies on it! – it’s a great opportunity to start afresh and protect your privacy online by default. As I recently got a new laptop here’s what I did as I set it up…

Start from scratch – no importing of settings/applications

Many laptop setup wizards offer the option to import applications, documents or other elements from your existing laptop. I didn’t do this, partly because I didn’t want to bloat my new laptop with anything that wasn’t necessary (and if you use cloud storage then you can download from there anyway), but largely because I wanted to check the settings of each application as I went – this is much easier to do if you’re installing them.

Browsers – install them all

I use at least four different browsers: Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. (You might also want to install Tor for particular use cases, although I’m not going to cover it here).

It’s useful to have different browsers partly because they offer different functionality, but also because it allows you to separate different activities. For example:

I use one browser only for Facebook. Facebook is notoriously curous about what you’re doing, and while you’re logged in it can track you across other sites. Making sure you’re only logged in on one browser means it doesn’t have a chance to install cookies on your browser and it has to work harder to track what you do on other sites (but can still do so – see below)

Use one browser only for Google services such as Gmail and Google Drive, for the same reason. It makes sense to use Chrome for this, given that Chrome is itself a Google service.

You might want to take a similar approach for other services such as Twitter, but you want to leave yourself at least one browser where you don’t use any of these.

Turn on Opera’s VPN

Operanow includes a built-in VPN (Virtual Private Network): this keeps your web browsing private when using public wifi, and allows you to mask your location. Because it hides your IP address It also makes it harder for services such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to track your browsing activity.

You can turn on the VPN in Opera’s Preferences/Settings menu, under Security & Privacy, where you should find a box marked “Enable VPN”.

In Firefox it’s in Preferences, under the Privacy section. Click on ‘manage your Do Not Track settings‘ and switch it on there.

In Safari it’s also in Preferences under Privacy – the last box to tick:

By the way, most browsers also offer an ‘incognito’ mode where you can browse websites without data being stored. In Firefox, Opera and Safari this is under File > New Private Window; in Chrome it is File > New Incognito Window.

Install browser extensions/plugins

There are a number of plugins for different browsers that help you start from a default position of increased privacy. HTTPS Everywhere (Chrome/Firefox/Opera) is made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ensures that, wherever possible, your browser connects to the HTTPS version of a website, making it harder for individual page use to be monitored, among other things. They also make Privacy Badger, which “blocks spying ads and trackers” — an alternative is Disconnect (Chrome/Firefox/Opera) or Ghostery.

Change the default search engine

Most browsers default to Google, but you can change this to a non-tracking search engine like DuckDuckGo by going into the settings. In Chrome this is in Preferences while in Firefox and Safari it is in Preferences > Search, and in Opera Preferences > Browser.

Start an audit of your accounts

Getting a new laptop is a good opportunity to begin identifying just how many online accounts you have and whether you’ve secured them properly. I started a list of accounts, and every time I had to log in to a new one I added it to the list. In particular you might consider:

Turn on encryption

That’s it.

It probably took me longer to write this article than to do everything in it. Obviously there’s a lot more that you can do, but these are just basic steps to ensure you’re not over-sharing information by default before you begin with a new laptop. Of course, I’ve probably forgotten something, so if you can think of anything else please let me know in the comments…